Yup! a LOT of fans tuned out, including fans heading for their cars. Can't even tell you how many ppl were pissed they turned off the game. My good bud (a fish fan no less) went to bed happy, woke up angry. He said when he went to bed, he couldn't wait to rub it in my face. Didn't work out!
The best thing about a thread like this is that it brings attention to someone like Winston Hill, a criminally underappreciated player who was in fact one of the finest offensive linemen of his era. It is outrageous that he is in not in the Hall of Fame, along with (of course) the man whose picture will be appearing in this thread in a couple of days. By all accounts Hill was also a very fine human being.
Klecko, Winston Hill, Randy Rasmussen, Larry Grantham, Gerry Philbin, Verlon Biggs, George Sauer, Lance Mehl, Kyle Clifton, Al Atkinson, Ralph Baker, Dave Herman, Marvin Powell, Joe Fields, Dan Alexander were all under appreciated Jets
Jumbo was actually signed by Kotite and Co before the 96 season. They signed him and a RT Doug Williams I think his name was. He had back issues and didn’t make it to the Parcells reign to my recollection . When Parcells took over obviously he had Jumbo at LT and O’Dwyer at LG ( who was showing promise ) but the rest of the line was subpar . He went through the 1997 with Cal Dixon at center - he was terrible. In 1998 he signed Mawae and drafted Fabini in the fourth round and then drafted Randy Thomas in the second round the following year. I want to say he signed another FA guard to replace O’Dwyer who fizzed out but I can’t recall his name ... When it was time for Jumbo to retire he simply inserted Fabini at LT and found an undrafted FA named Ryan Young to play RT. Eventually the Jets lost him in an expansion draft to the Texans . But anyway it took only 2 years for Parcells to remake that OL into one of the league’s finest for a long time ...
Not that it matters that much, but just for the record, Ryan Young was a 7th round draft pick, not a UDFA.
agreed. by the way, when looking for Klecko pictures I saw one where the Jets were wearing the Green helmets with the traditional white jerseys. I didn't post the image because it was too large. but those looked really cool. the person uploaded the picture noted that it was the preseason of the 1st year with green helmets so they wore the old jerseys with the new helmets. When they changed styles this year they should've just done that, it looked awesome
I think I know the picture you’re referring to it was posted on this thread from last year. The Jets were playing Atlanta right? I commented on the uniform combination because it was the first time I saw that particular picture and I noticed the strange combination. I didn’t really start following the Jets until around 1980 / 1981 so I wouldn’t remember the change from the white helmets to green in 1978...
I found it Browning.....according to the football database this was week #1 of the 1978 preseason played in the Meadowlands. Tried to paste also.......too large.
I love it. And all those muddy bloody pictures of players back when football was football. I gives the younger generation a glimpse into what football used to be like, and all for $50,000 a year!